Friday fictioneers – The Mice

“Never can tell when something could come in handy,” he would say, scratching his chin and grinning. “They call it upcycling now.”

Rubbish, other people called it.

But the heaps grew. What happened was inevitable. They emerged, composed at first entirely of sound, not substance. In drifts of old papers and precarious castles of rust they rustled and scampered. Moving inexorable, always along the edges of sleep, always on the borders of consciousness, they came. Patrick knew now just that embarrassment God must have felt, noticing the first stirrings in some untidy little swamp.

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find it here.

This is a beautiful, understated story. I love how you convey the infestation — coming in sound, creeping in at the edges of sleep. A very vivid world is created, so quickly — Patrick’s character included. And your final line makes that world infinite and inclusive — here we all are, scurrying. Lovely.